Reign- A Chess RTS

Hey all.
This game will involve the pieces and rules of Chess, fantasized into an RTS setting. It's probably closest to Starcraft in nature, but incorporates several new gameplay elements I hope will be interesting.

Currently has basic unit selection and movement, and tiled editable terrain.

Added saving and loading of levels to text files, improved the editor some.

Some of my basic design ideas:
• The death of the king will be the goal of most games.
• The king is a large, slow unit with a powerful melee attack. It also has the ability to produce pawns.
• Pawns are normally gathering units, but can be upgraded into a basic melee unit, basic ranged unit, or a 'builder' class that actually creates the other four unit types.
• All units can be upgraded similarly, for instance the Bishop upgrades from a basic ranged unit to either a healer or a sniper.
• The resources will be Clay and Aqua Vitae. Clay is used to produce basic unit types and buildings. Aqua Vitae is used for upgrades, and as a communal 'mana' supply for special attacks.

1 Month Update:Download. (As stated below, I haven't been able to get the program to run on any computer but my own. For now, if anyone is able to run, do please let me know.)

Much of the basic RTS functionality is in place:
-Units can be selected by clicking or dragging.
-Units can be ordered to attack, and also have a move, attackmove, and hold commands. (Patrol hasn't been added yet).
-Resources (clay and water) can be mined and spent.
-Kings can produce new pawns, pawns can produce any other unit.
-Minimap (including can also be used for moving the camera and issuing orders).
-A (very) basic menu.
-Basic particle system.
-Terrain and tilemap editor.

Major lacking features / issues at the moment:
-No pathfinding. Both a long range for moving about the map and a short range for maneuvering around other pieces will be needed.
- Victory conditions (killing the king, killing all units, reaching a certain area, etc.)
- AI is totally non-existent.
-I'm getting much more slowdown than I should, considering the amount of polygons that are being rendered.
- I can't actually get the program to run on any computer but my own. (Good thing I caught this now ). There is a problem with including the native library components for JOGL that I'm still trying to figure out.

Download
The native library problem should be fixed now, so the program should actually be able to run on other computers.
In the meantime:
- Units will now push themselves around other units/features, and groups of units will intelligently move to locations around their true target, to avoid bunching.

- There are basic victory/defeat conditions (if your king or all the enemy kings are killed).

- Units are now 'built' over time. Units that are still 'in production' will have a cloudy grey texture. Pawns (from a king) build themselves automatically, while with other units, a pawn needs to stay there and work on them after they're spawned.

Up next:
- Modelling and coding unit upgrades.
- Make a basic storyboard system for between missions.
- AI

Hey, got it to run however it's a bit confusing (understandably without a guide ). I can only seem to get some of the pieces to move and attack sometimes. The way they move almost makes it seem more like a space-fighter rts, which is cool though. I'm not sure what exactly I mine at all. Definitely a lot of progress though, good luck!
Alex

Updates:
-Added a storyboard-cutscene system, made most of the storyboard images for the campaign.
-Added a unit upgrade system, added/edited models for all unit types.
-Added the structure for an AI, though right now all it does is move random pieces to random positions.
-Converted most of the data (unit types, attack types, etc. ) into xml files rather than hard coded.

Up Next:
-Collision. Right now, units will collide with each other and map features, but they also need to be restricted by steep hills, etc. Not sure whether to make this algorithmic by looking at slopes, or just add a collision grid layer.
-Fog of war.
-Fill out all unit attacks/abilities
-As always, improve AI.

By the way, does anyone have any ideas for some interesting special abilities for a 'Queen' unit?

First time checking this out. Looks neat, but when I played it, I was confused. I looked at the Read Me and it looks pretty elaborate, but when I play it, it seems I just need to select all of my units and roam the map/board right-clicking on/near enemies and I always win?

Before working on special abilities and things, maybe you could flesh out the core gameplay and make sure it's solid? It might just be a problem with unimplemented AI, I'm not sure. It seems like I have a lot of pieces and the enemies don't and mostly just kinda hang out or patrol a little.

Also, the unit command icons on the right aren't super clear. Perhaps you could add some words on them?

Very true, you pretty much can just do that roaming thing at the moment.
And you're right, given the need for good core gameplay within the deadline, certain things may need to be dropped, like fog of war.
Actually that would be interesting, putting things on a much smaller map scale with unlimited vision. More chess like too.

Edit: That's a consideration too though, the small scale denotes micromanagement-heavy gameplay, which might be beyond my A.I. skills. Finding strategy rather than tactics heavy gameplay on that scale would be interesting.

Ran your posted build from uDevGames.com on my 10.6.8 MacBook. You probably bit off a bit more than you can chew for this competition since it looks like you made a pretty complicated game, but with no scenario ramp-up or tutorial for anyone to be able to figure it out. Even with the README it was hard for me to tell what was going on, let alone what I was supposed to do. The fact that you went with a chess theme made the game even less readable because the pieces just look like black or white abstract shapes from top-down. I think for whatever you post for the competition build you should try to simplify- maybe even cutting down to just a few units for the first few maps, if you have time to make multiple ones- and some on-screen instructions about what the player is supposed to do.
The game definitely has potential, but without making it approachable, nobody is going to be able to experience that full potential.

Glad that it runs, I actually was having trouble with with that earlier.

There has indeed been many changes since that version. There are now tutorial levels and a ramping up of units used. The level in the latest release was my test level for things, the final "campaign" will have 8 maps.

In terms of complication, even through the most recent release, the gameplay was much more traditional RTS/starcraft related. After Seth's comment and my realization that I had one month left, it's become a bit more like League of Legends, if you know that.

Unit identification: I've been staring at them so long I can tell them apart, so I haven't realized how it might be for players. The final version will have a default/maximum zoom that's closer in. I'll try to make the textures more differentiated while I'm at it.

The project started out very far reaching, and the cuts I did make were practical, if rather late. As it is the game is incredibly unbalanced (and maybe not even beatable in some situations ).
Really though, I entered this competition to give myself some motivation to work on a game, and now I'll have a decent base to produce a true finished work off of.

Edit: I'll be putting up some better screenshots and a game banner tomorrow after I unwind some. That's still allowed since it's just advertising, right?

I downloaded the new build. The framerate seems to have gotten worse, so much that it's basically unplayble on my computer (2.16 GHz MacBook)- possibly because the window got bigger. I have a 128 MB graphics card, so the game must be doing something somewhat inefficiently to slowly draw what it's drawing with that low a poly count and no alpha transparency. Unfortunately I have no mouse wheel so I can't try to zoom in to see if that improves the framerate.

On the first level I found the unit kept just getting stuck on the hills to the northwest when trying to pathfind to where I wanted. Having played Starcraft it feels odd that A+click is not attack move but is attack ground instead. The mini-map click seemed to not work right and would not never center to the left side of the map.